A recent deal with Twitch exclusively binds Blizzard premier tournaments to the streaming platform, and will net additional revenue through the service’s Prime customers. With a cap, Blizzard can hand-wave lackluster success for the War Chest as “generating a percentage of their target goal,” rather than simply announcing a total number generated.īlizzard has been bolstering its esports division, but the results have been mixed. While there may be a genuine need for funding in the Starcraft scene that Blizzard is unable (or unwilling) to come up with, it feels like a lack of faith in the community. It remains unclear why Blizzard is limiting the amount of money going towards the biggest SCII event of the year, but it’s not a great look on the surface. However, if SCII is going to see bigger prize support and a potential revival, crowd-funding is the definitive route to take, even if that means Blizzard gets to reap in three-thirds of the War Chest’s revenue. With SCII’s playerbase a shell of what it once was, and its esports footprint essentially non-existent, it’s hard to imagine seeing enormous numbers from this endeavor. It rewards in-game skins and portraits, and lets fans “fund” the Starcraft esports scene, with 25 percent of the revenue going directly to tournament pay-outs. The War Chest is, to put it kindly, identical to Dota 2’s Compendium.
Only $200,000 of the money raised from the War Chest will be added to the $500,000 Blizzcon prize pool, with any remaining surplus “contributing to SCII event production.”
Interestingly, Blizzard has imposed a monetary cap on War Chest revenue going towards its WCS finals at Blizzcon. Only $200,000 of the money raised from the War Chest will be added to the $500,000 Blizzcon prize pool. Blizzard Entertainment looks to Valve’s crowdfunding model for the International, as the War Chest – a new crowd-funding effort for Starcraft II’s WCS tournaments – goes live later this week.